Tangentopoli

Tangentopoli was a large-scale criminal investigation in the early 1990s against widespread corruption and bribery in Italian administrative, political, and business circles. This included the examination of the links between the Sicilian Mafia and over 400 Members of Parliament, as well as the bringing of charges against 160 individuals about payment of bribes to the state electricity company ENEL in May 1995. On 30 October 1993, the president of the electronic conglomerate Olivetti, Carlo de Benedetti, was imprisoned after admitting the payment of $7,000,000 to political parties in return for state contracts. A host of government ministers from the 1980s were convicted of accepting illegal payments either for themselves or their political parties, the most prominent being ex-Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who was sentenced in 1994 (in absentia) to eight-and-a-half years' imprisonment on two accounts of corruption. Furthermore, Paolo Berlusconi, the brother of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who had been elected on a promise to fight against corruption, was sentenced on 22 December 1994 to seven months' imrpsionment on charges of bribery as manager of his brother's holding company, Fininvest.

Connected with these efforts to purge the Italian establishment were intensified efforts in the campaign against the Mafia. In 1993, around 22,000 people were under investigation for links with the organization. On 27 August 1994, one of the most sought-after mafiosi, Lorenzo Tinnirello, was arrested and charged with 119 murders. In addition, there were investigations against a number of prominent politicians, such as the former Minister of Defense Salvo Ando, and the former chairman of the Sicilian Christian Democracy, Calogero Mannino. The most prominent case revolved around ex-Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who was accused of being a member and protector of the Mafia for fourteen years. The charges against Andreotti, who more than any other politician represented the political system during the late 1970s and 1980s, epitomized the moral bankruptcy of the established parties and directly contributed to their collapse in 1993-4. At the same time, it proved difficult to find a new political leadership that had sufficient experience of politics to be successful, but which had not taken part in the corruption of the 1980s and early 1990s. The absence of strong political leadership that could use moral superiority as a basis for fundamental political reform made genuine change in Italian government and administration extremely difficult to achieve.

The result of the scandal was the rapid decline and death of Christian Democracy, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, and the Italian Liberal Party, all of which were tainted by the scandal. The only surviving older parties were the Democratic Party of the Left, the Italian Republican Party, and the Italian Social Movement, and Lega Nord, a far-right protest movement, became the largest party in northern Italy.